*NEWS*INK CARTRIDGE SPAMMER GETS FINED

US spammer gets a year in the canISP
won a $15.4m judgment against Florida resident Craig Brockwell and his
company, BC Alliance, on Can-Spam charges. According to that suit,
Brockwell sent hundreds of thousands of unsolicited emails advertising
discounted inkjet printer cartridges. The ruling, issued last month,
also prevents Brockwell and his company from illegally spamming any
internet user, regardless of the ISP they use.The cases were among
a handful of claims EarthLink filed earlier this year against alleged
spammers in California, Florida, Nevada and Washington state. The
company has won a number of other spam-related suits, including one
against the so-called Alabama spammers in January.Larry Slovensky,
an assistant general counsel for EarthLink, said in a statement: ”
these cases represent more examples of how civil litigation and legal
action can put spammers out of business.”When President Bush signed
the Can-Spam Act nearly two years ago, critics were sceptical that it
would stem the rising tide of junk email landing in people’s inboxes.
But a recent study indicates US computers are relaying far fewer spam
messages than they did a year ago. The authors of the report, put out
by security software company Sophos, attributed the decline to new
legislation and jail sentences for spammers.